At present, global enterprises are in the stage of digital transformation, and retail enterprises are no exception. With the expansion of market scale and the rapid increase of business scale, the business process of the retail industry has become more and more cumbersome, and the amount of transaction data involved will continue to rise.
Especially in recent years, the business environment is complicated and the labor cost has been soaring, so retail companies are under increasing pressure.
According to data from McKinsey & Company, more than half (54%) of jobs in the retail or fast-moving consumer goods (CPG) industry are likely to be replaced by automation. The retail automation market is expected to grow from USD 8.79 billion in 2017 to USD 14.03 billion in 2022.
How can retail companies embrace the era of robot automation in the next stage, reduce costs and increase efficiency, and enhance market competitiveness?
Foreign retail giants have taken the lead in embracing RPA
Nowadays, RPA has been recognized by more and more retail enterprises, and it has achieved remarkable results in reducing retail enterprise operating costs and improving business efficiency.
Amazon's RPA application
In May 2019, the global retail giant Amazon deployed RPA process automation robots in its warehousing, customer service, after-sales and other departments, replacing 1,300 job positions, saving Amazon a lot of working time and human resource costs.
Two months later, Amazon announced that it would invest 700 million US dollars to help about 100,000 employees in the group to train new skills including data science, RPA, artificial intelligence, etc., aiming to expand the popularization and promotion of RPA and help employees improve their own technology , In order to better integrate into the era of robot automation.
Suntory's RPA application
Recognized as the leading retailer of beverages and soft drinks in Japan, Suntory Group has also begun to apply RPA to improve productivity and corporate competitiveness in the future. The RPA solution can effectively reduce incorrect data and response delays caused by previous manual operations, save a lot of time for employees, release manpower, and enable them to undertake more humanized tasks. In addition to establishing an RPA service center at the headquarters, Suntory has successively implemented process automation solutions in its Asian subsidiaries (Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, etc.).
RPA application of WalMart
Walmart uses RPA+AI to monitor retail stores in real time. With the intensification of competition in the retail market, the world retail giant Wal-Mart is applying RPA (Robot Process Automation), AI (Artificial Intelligence), ML (Machine Learning) and other technologies to physical stores to manage with more effective digital technology, and Make the customer shopping experience more enjoyable. Wal-Mart has launched a smart retail laboratory in a direct store in downtown Tallahassee, Florida, USA.
RPA may change the rules of the game in the retail industry
RPA is changing the rules of the game in the retail industry through various technological advantages. The emergence of RPA can effectively control and improve business processes, optimize the supply chain of retail enterprises, and solve problems such as the difficulty of traditional business processes to withstand excessive business volume. Save costs for enterprises, increase productivity, and enhance customer experience.
Process characteristics for RPA automation in the retail industry
●Large business volume: The daily transaction volume of retail business is large.
●Clear rules: A large number of operations in daily operational procedures are based on clear rules.
●High maturity: The retail industry is a mature industry, and most business processes are standardized and not easy to change.
●High complexity: Many tasks in the retail value chain can be decomposed into relatively simple sequential tasks.
●Multiple system software: The retail industry usually uses different system platforms in the areas of store management, e-commerce business, etc., and the connection between these systems requires flexibility.
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6 scenarios for RPA in the retail industry
Scenario 1: Trade promotion
As a major expenditure item in the retail industry, this process involves a lot of manual operations, and at the same time, based on spreadsheets, it requires continuous data collection and analysis. RPA can improve the ability to quickly and accurately track and analyze promotional activities, while eliminating human error and improving efficiency.
UB Store related robots
lazada fully classified data capture and analysis sales rate robot
An e-commerce robot that automatically captures all classified data of Lazada and analyzes the sales rate.
Scenario 2: Sales analysis
Due to the analysis and processing of large amounts of sales data every day, employees need to improve their work efficiency and complete their work as soon as possible. RPA can provide comprehensive audits and real-time insights to help retailers and suppliers conduct more effective analysis to maximize sales opportunities.
UB Store related robots
Commodity data analysis robot
Regularly obtain data information from business staff and other systems, establish data models according to customer requirements, and provide customers with data trend analysis.
Scenario 3: Money management
The RPA robot can help employees perform automated data processing (such as: obtaining bank account flow records and account balances, bank receipt collection and analysis, making capital statements, etc.), so as to effectively manage the funds of each store, so as to grasp all retail in a timely manner The capital flow of shops.
UB Store related robots
Automatic downloading robot for bank statement
Log in to the bank automatically and download daily bank statements. Support domestic mainstream banks such as Ping An Bank, China Merchants Bank, Bank of China, China Construction Bank, and Industrial and Commercial Bank of China. It is more secure and stable for use with UiBot KeyBox.
Scenario 4: Accounting processing
Deploy RPA to help companies complete the accounting processing of various sales models (including the downloading of accounting papers, the preparation of accounting vouchers, and the entry of accounts, etc.), shorten the overall time of the accounting processing process, and allow financial personnel to devote more energy to financial analysis, etc. Work that requires advanced analysis.
UB Store related robots
Automatic production of accounting document robot
The robot reads bank receipts, expense reimbursement forms and other documents, and automatically creates accounting vouchers.
Scenario 5: Data verification
Financial personnel in the retail industry have to check the sales data of many stores and different sales channels every day, which is not only time-consuming and laborious but also prone to errors. RPA can automatically download daily sales data from the internal sales system, download the income statements of each store from each payment platform, and then perform data verification to find out abnormalities, reduce the workload of employees, and monitor the sales data of each store in real time to ensure data accuracy .
UB Store related robots
Sales data analysis and summary robot
It is mainly used for reading, analyzing, checking and summarizing the data of the sales schedule.
Scenario 6: Supply chain management
In the past, supply chain cost calculations required employees to manually calculate supply chain costs for many accounts in different regions or countries. The amount of data processed is large and input errors are prone to occur.
RPA robots can process transactions related to the supply chain in Excel and transfer the processed data directly to SAP. It also allows employees to directly use processed data to calculate costs, reducing manual work and inaccuracy in the entire process.
UB Store related robots
SAP Automatically Inventory Email Robot
Used to automatically export the inventory data of the SAP designated warehouse, and then automatically send an email to the relevant personnel.
Not only foreign retail giants, but domestic large-scale retailers are also actively deploying RPA, such as Ali and Suning. As the future of the retail industry, the pace of RPA platform landing in retail companies will further accelerate. In order to seize the next wave of retail outlets, retailers are bound to include RPA as their first choice for digital transformation of enterprises.
*More Internet retail/fast-moving/e-commerce RPA robots can be viewed or customized in the UB Store
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